Criminal Law

The Right to Counsel

Posted on April 04, 2010
New York State?s dysfunctional, underfinanced public defender program is a problem of constitutional dimensions. It is the subject of a class-action lawsuit, which argues credibly that indigent criminal defendants are regularly deprived of their right to effective counsel...

The Insanity of It All

Posted on April 02, 2010
We also never question our four-decades-old War on Drugs, which has produced cheaper drugs of higher quality at lower prices in thousands of U.S. cities and towns. It has helped create one of the largest prison populations in the world. If our drug policy were a ship, it would be called the Titanic...

Rethinking Sex Offender Laws for Youth Texting

Posted on March 31, 2010
In most states, teenagers who send or receive sexually explicit photographs by cellphone or computer ? known as ?sexting? ? have risked felony child pornography charges and being listed on a sex offender registry for decades to come. Last year, Nebraska, Utah and Vermont changed their laws to reduce penalties for teenagers who engage in such activities, and this year, according to the National Council on State Legislatures, 14 more states are considering legislation that would treat young people who engage in sexting differently from adult pornographers and sexual predators...

More Assaults at Idaho Prison

Posted on March 31, 2010
Just days after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the operators of Idaho's largest prison, the Idaho Correctional Center, an Idaho Falls man who was savagely beaten and suffered what could be permanent brain damage there notified the state that he would sue for at least $25 million...

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Cash Register Justice

Posted on March 30, 2010
Increasingly, states are turning to so-called ?user fees? and surcharges to underwrite criminal justice costs and close budget gaps. In this report, we focus on Florida, a state that relies so heavily on fees to fund its courts that observers have coined a term for it ? ?cash register justice...

Idaho's Broken System of Indigent Defense

Posted on March 28, 2010
The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) finds that the state of Idaho fails to provide the level of representation required by our Constitution for those who cannot afford counsel in its criminal and juvenile courts. By delegating to each county the responsibility to provide counsel at the trial level without any state funding or oversight, Idaho has sewn a patchwork quilt of underfunded, inconsistent systems that vary greatly in defining who qualifies for services and in the level of competency of the services rendered...

I did not know I was a communist until I moved to Idaho

Posted on March 25, 2010
The other day Glenn Beck became worked up over social justice. In Beck's world social justice is code for communism, Marxism, totalitarianism, Nazism, and bad acne. Beck advocated that his listeners run from clergy who uttered the phrase social justice...

California is Leading the Way...Again

Posted on March 24, 2010
BLANCASTER, Calif. ? The California budget crisis has forced the state to address a problem that expert panels and judges have wrangled over for decades: how to reduce prison overcrowding. The state has begun in recent weeks the most significant changes since the 1970s to reduce overcrowding ? and chip away at an astonishing 70 percent recidivism rate, the highest in the country ? as the prison population becomes a major drag on the state?s crippled finances...

The Myth of Impartial Jurors

Posted on March 21, 2010
The death penalty trial of a West Philadelphia man - accused of killing two people and wounding a third in the bloody 2006 takeover of a crack cocaine ring in the Northeast - collapsed in mistrial this morning after the judge learned jurors began deliberating before the trial ended...

State Prison Population Drops for First Time Since 1972

Posted on March 17, 2010
Spurred by budget crises, California and Michigan together reduced their prison populations by more than 7,500 last year, contributing to what a new report says is the first nationwide decline in the number of state inmates since 1972. The overall drop was slight, according to the Pew Center on the States ? just 0...

Putting Felons to Work

Posted on March 16, 2010
Stephanie Harris' management and sales skills helped her earn $3,000 for just six or seven hours of work on a "good" day. Over 10 years, Harris says, she earned about half a million dollars. But her job took away her freedom. Harris was sentenced in 2007 to eight years in prison for selling heroin...

Problems with the Idaho Commission on Pardons & Parole

Posted on March 15, 2010
For 25 years, Olivia Craven has overseen how felons are paroled in Idaho, leaving prison to complete sentences under community supervision. A former parole officer herself, Craven has survived while correction directors flip through a revolving door...

Balance Between Hysteria and Legitimate Concern

Posted on March 14, 2010
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered a review of the way the state handled a molesting case involving a man who is now charged with murdering one California teenager and is under investigation in another killing. The order came a day after The Associated Press reported that the man, John A...

Reducing, But Not Eliminating, Sentencing Disparity

Posted on March 13, 2010
A long-standing dispute over huge disparities in sentencing between crack vs. powdered cocaine appears to be headed for a resolution in Congress. Senate lawmakers reached across the aisle and brokered a landmark deal this week to reduce criminal penalties for defendants caught with crack cocaine...

The Price We Pay

Posted on March 11, 2010
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing state prison officials and a private company, claiming violence is so rampant at the Idaho Correctional Center that it's known as "gladiator school" among inmates. The ACLU said it would file the lawsuit Thursday against Nashville, Tenn...

Isn't This Attempted Murder?

Posted on March 10, 2010
The company at the heart of a growing recall of processed foods knew that its plant was contaminated with salmonella but continued to make a flavoring and sell it to foodmakers around the country, according to inspectors at the Food and Drug Administration...

Attacking Defense Lawyers

Posted on March 09, 2010
In the McCarthy era, demagogues on the right smeared loyal Americans as disloyal and charged that the government was being undermined from within. In this era, demagogues on the right are smearing loyal Americans as disloyal and charging that the government is being undermined from within...

A Classic Case of Wrongful Conviction

Posted on March 06, 2010
Harrington said he believed he was protecting the community when he convinced a jury that Gates was the man who raped and killed Catherine Schilling, 21, a college student whose naked body was found in Rock Creek Park in 1981 with five bullet wounds to her head...

Job Fair for Convicted Felons

Posted on March 05, 2010
More than 3,000 people turned out in downtown Houston, Texas, Wednesday for a job fair designed for convicted felons. Read more... What a sensational idea. Here is why: Lavell Byrd was just one of the people who came out in search of work. He told KHOU that he hadn't had a full-time position since December...

Fear versus Rationality

Posted on March 05, 2010
In the rush to save money in grim budgetary times, states nationwide have trimmed their prison populations by expanding parole programs and early releases. But the result ? more convicted felons on the streets, not behind bars ? has unleashed a backlash, and state officials now find themselves trying to maneuver between saving money and maintaining the public?s sense of safety...

States Reduce Prison Population - Except Idaho

Posted on March 03, 2010
Many state governments continued last year to reduce their prison populations through sentencing reforms enacted because of shrinking state budgets, according to two reports released Wednesday by a research group that advocates for lower rates of imprisonment...

Why Prisons Continue to Fail

Posted on March 02, 2010
In 1998, CASA released its landmark report, Behind Bars: Substance Abuse and America's Prison Population, revealing that four out of five of America?s 1.7 million prison and jail inmates were substance involved in 1996. This report provides an update of that work, finding that despite growing evidence of effective strategies to reduce the prevalence and costs of substance-involved offenders, the burden of substance misuse and addiction to our nation?s criminal justice system actually has increased...

If the Lawyer Fails

Posted on March 01, 2010
Our legal system is complex and a lot more powerful than any individual. That is why the Constitution guarantees people accused of serious crimes the right to counsel. If a lawyer turns out to be negligent, the system must do all it can to protect the individual?s rights...

Victims families speak out against the death penalty

Posted on February 25, 2010
Murder victims' families and friends are speaking out in opposition to capital punishment in a variety of forums. The following are comments from the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty. Read more... It is wrong to assume that every murder victims' family and friends want to see the perpetrator executed...

Another Low Point in Texas

Posted on February 24, 2010
Charles Dean Hood was condemned to die in 1990 after being convicted of a double murder in Texas. Just prior to the execution in 2008, it was revealed that the judge (Verla Sue Holland) in the case was "romantically involved" with the prosecutor who argued the case...

Forensic Lab Problems Cry Out for More Oversight and Quality Standards

Posted on February 23, 2010
A spate of recent news reports has called into question the objectivity of some forensic evidence and highlighted the need for effective oversight mechanisms for the nation?s crime labs. Fingerprint analysts told The Missouri Lawyer that when police officers have access to the labs, they often pressure the fingerprint examiners to secure arrests...

The Real Crime Problem

Posted on February 21, 2010
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline knew of possible heart attack risks tied to its controversial diabetes drug Avandia years before evidence of a link became public, according to a U.S. Senate report released Saturday. Based on its knowledge of those risks, GlaxoSmithKline "had a duty to sufficiently warn patients and the FDA of its concerns in a timely manner," said the Senate Finance Committee report, which followed a two-year inquiry...

More Problems in Juvenile (In)Justice

Posted on February 21, 2010
TROY ERIK ISAAC was 12 years old and one week into a court-ordered detention for vandalism when he was sexually assaulted by an older, bigger boy. It would not be the last time. "I was effeminate, thin and looked vulnerable," he says now, 24 years after the fact...

We Need More Success Like This

Posted on February 19, 2010
At the bus terminal in downtown Los Angeles, they're easy to spot. Dressed in blue jeans, they carry boxes, bags or large envelopes with their name and a number on it. They are ex-offenders, just released from California's prison system. When they step off the bus with $200 in "gate money" in their pockets, many have hopes of making a fresh start...

Another Exoneration

Posted on February 18, 2010
Acting at the recommendation of a special state innocence commission ? the only one of its kind in the nation ? a panel of North Carolina judges ruled Wednesday that a man was wrongfully convicted of murdering a prostitute in 1991 and freed him after 16 years in prison...

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